In August 1941, three lumbering Soviet bombers head towards Nazi-allied territory.
But these are no ordinary bombers.
Because for years, the Soviets have been secretly developing a new kind of weapon.
Flying aircraft carriers. Designed to pierce through enemy lines to deploy
a swarm of fighter planes and dive bombers. Nothing like it had ever been seen before.
And with the Soviet Union's darkest hour approaching, these massive juggernauts
are about to make history. Because they're headed straight for enemy territory.
By the 1930s, it was clear that aircraft would play an essential role in future conflicts.
But there was a problem that had plagued aircraft designers from the very beginning.
Large heavy bombers could carry lots of fuel, so they could fly great distances.
But fighter aircraft, which had to be light and agile,
could carry only enough fuel to cover a short distance.
This mismatch had consequences.
While bombers could fly deep into enemy territory, their fighter escorts couldn’t.
And over hostile airspace, the bombers were often on their own. With only a handful of
machine guns to fend off enemy fighters, they were vulnerable and suffered heavy losses.
But in 1930, Soviet engineer Vladimir Vakhmistrov came up with a radical solution.
Actually, it’s pretty straightforward, if you could have the bombers carry the fighters,
they could be transported over great distances and deployed whenever they were needed.
At first, Vukhmistrov’s idea fell on deaf ears. The Red Army was focused on strength
through numbers, not gambling on unproven ideas. But Vakhmistrov pressed on. Comrades,
flying aircraft carriers have tremendous potential. The fighters could not only
protect the bombers, they could be fitted with their own bombs to make precise strikes
against more challenging targets. Or they could be carried far out to
sea to attack naval fleets which would otherwise be out of range.
The fighters could even clear the path for our bombers by destroying enemy anti-aircraft
guns in advance, or by blinding them with smoke screens, making accurate targeting impossible.
Flying aircraft carriers could also patrol our borders, remaining airborne,
ready to intercept enemy bombers before they made it anywhere near their targets.
The strategic benefits couldn't be ignored. Not even by the Red Army.
The platform for Vakhmistrov's aircraft carriers would be the mighty TB-1 and TB-3.
As the largest bombers of their time, they had plenty of power to carry the fighters.
But figuring out where to attach them was the tricky part.
In the wrong spot, the fighters would interfere with the bomber’s control, or airflow would make
launching them impossible. And in an era before sophisticated wind tunnels it would all have
to be figured out through trial and error. Vakhmistrov would call his creation Zveno.
And he would end up flight testing more than a dozen configurations. In some models,
the fighters were mounted above the wings, in others suspended below. One arrangement
even saw five fighters carried at once. Remarkably, instead of weighing the bomber down,
the fighters actually helped to boost their performance. Because during flight,
the fighters would run their engines continuously, while drawing fuel from
additional tanks fitted to the bomber. This brilliant setup allowed the bombers to fly
faster, climb higher, and lift even more than they could without the fighters attached.
Launching the fighters was fairly straightforward. As long as the bomber was kept steady,
any reasonably skilled pilot would manage. But reattaching to the carrier was another matter.
On later versions, a trapeze-like system allowed pilots to dock with the carrier
to take on more fuel. But docking was a skill that would take time to master.
During flight, the fighters would communicate with the carrier using a telephone system and
a series of lights mounted in front of their gunsights would further signal commands.
Everyone was pleased with how Zveno flew, but on the ground things were more challenging.
To load the fighters over the wings, we'd need all the help we could get, calling over mechanics,
ground controllers, and anyone else unfortunate enough to be at the airfield. We all wondered if
we could ever get used to such a strenuous task. And then everything changed for the better when
the Communist Party provided us with a tractor. But the flying aircraft carrier concept
was viable. And Vakhmistrov had laid the groundwork for something truly remarkable.
Vakhmistrov envisioned building enormous airborne mother ships, capable of carrying
more than twenty fighters. He also wanted to develop purpose-built fighters that wouldn’t need
heavy landing gear and could be built with smaller wings for greater speed and maneuverability.
Of course, these ideas would have to wait until the Zveno carriers had proven useful to the Red
Army. But after years of development, that turned out to be far more difficult than anticipated.
Back in 1932, the Red army seemed eager to accept the first version. But when new I-5
fighters became available, Vakhmistrov was ordered to modify his design.
Then, when the more powerful 4 engine TB-3 bomber was introduced, Vakhmistrov was once again sent
back to the drawing board. It was the same story when I-16 fighters became available. It wasn't
until 1939, nearly a decade after the project started, that the Red Army finally accepted
the carriers with an order for 40 carriers, equally divided amongst the Navy and Army.
But by this point, some military planners were beginning to doubt the whole project.
For one, the TB-3 bomber was now obsolete. Next to modern aircraft,
like an American B-17, the TB-3 with its crude lines, looked more like farm equipment.
And there were doubts about whether the slow lumbering bombers could still be effective
in combat. Meanwhile, the situation in Europe was beginning to worry the Soviets. By 1940,
Nazi Germany had conquered much of Europe and military planners
feared that the Soviet Union was next. With war on the horizon, resources were shifted
to the production of proven weapons. And it meant only five Zveno carriers were ever delivered,
and even those were pulled from duty in the summer of 1940, dismantled, and put into storage.
It seemed like Vakhmistrov's efforts would amount to nothing. But with the Soviet
Union's darkest hour approaching, Zveno carriers were about to make history.
On June 22, 1941, Nazi Germany launched a massive attack on the Soviet Union.
Unprepared, Soviet defenses quickly crumbled. In the south,
the Red Army scrambled to slow the advance towards the vital port
cities of Odesa and Sevastopol by launching counter-attacks on Nazi-allied Romania.
A critical target for the Soviets was the King Carol the first Bridge, as its destruction would
cut a vital railway and oil pipeline, and disrupt the flow of supplies to Romanian troops.
For days, the Soviets tried to take out the bridge using conventional bombers. But each time,
the bombers missed their targets and faced heavy resistance from
anti-aircraft guns and enemy fighters. It was soon apparent that only precision dive
bombers would have any chance of destroying the bridge.
But the Soviet Union was critically short on capable dive bomber crews, and existing
fighters lacked the range to reach the bridge. So the Red Army raced to pull the Zveno carriers
from storage and bring them back into working order.
Ordinarily, an I-16 fighter loaded up with nearly a third of its weight in bombs would have never
made it off the runway. But the heavily loaded Zveno carriers had no trouble lifting off.
Before striking the bridge, the Zveno pilots cut their teeth attacking an oil refinery.
40 kilometers from the target, four fighters detached from their carriers and headed towards
the refinery. Patrolling fighters didn’t even try to intercept the I-16s. After all, a Soviet
fighter could’ve never made it so far behind enemy lines. So they were assumed to be friendly.
The Zveno fighters made a devastating attack on the refinery. Amongst the confusion the
enemy couldn't even return fire. The first ever use of Zveno in combat was a huge success.
In the early hours of August 10, three Zveno carriers left to attack the King
Carol Bridge. Although one carrier had to turn back due to mechanical problems,
the remaining fighters pushed on. Taking on heavy anti-aircraft fire,
they managed to strike the bridge. But while damaged, it remained standing. So three days
later, the attack was repeated. This time, six fighters launched from the carriers
Again, they were met with fierce anti-aircraft fire, but the nimble I-16's managed to score
five direct hits, completely destroying one of the bridge’s spans. And they
returned home without any losses. The Zveno carriers were proving to be
far more useful than originally thought, capable of making sudden and unexpected
attacks against difficult to reach targets. On August 17th, Zveno carriers destroyed a dry
dock in Constanta. On the 28th, they destroyed crossings on the Dnieper River, helping to
significantly slow the advance of Nazi troops. On September 9th, after yet another successful
bombing raid, two I-16 fighters shot down a pair of Bf-109's. But after that, records stop.
The Soviet Union was only at the beginning of the most devastating
War in history. Zveno carriers continued to fly under increasingly dire circumstances,
and little is known about their ultimate fate. But there were at least 30 successful missions.
While outdated by the time they saw action, the carriers proved to be highly effective,
even if they were ultimately a desperate attempt to do what could have been done
with modern capable dive bombers. And once dive bombers and well trained crews became available
in larger numbers, Zveno fell out of favor But Vakhmistrov wasn’t alone in his dream. The
United States experimented with enormous aircraft carrying airships, and later, bombers to carry
fighters over great distances. But the concept always seemed, a little too ahead of its time.
Until the late 1960s, when emerging technologies promised to open up new
possibilities. Major advances in aerodynamics, exotic new materials, and propulsion would soon
pave the way for aircraft many times larger than anything in existence.
And in 1969, Lockheed studied the concept in detail, examining the
strategic advantages that a true airborne carrier could offer. The Lockheed CL-1201
is one of the most bizarre and fascinating aircraft studies ever produced. And you can
learn more about it in my feature coming this month to Nebula.
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